What is Mindfulness?

Often we go through life on automatic pilot. Rarely do we stop to pay attention to what is going on around us.

Mindfulness helps us to see clearly what is going on in our lives.

Regardless of the circumstances we find ourselves in, we can learn to respond to them in a calm and creative manner. We can step away from our habitual responses, that are so often unhelpful, and find new ways of responding to the inevitable ups and downs of life.

"Mindfulness is the art of staying in the moment and accepting what is. Because it is already here."

Many of us spend much of our time focused either on the past or the future, paying very little attention to what is happening in the present. This means that we are unaware of a lot of our experience in the only moment that we really have, the one that’s happening right now.

Mindfulness is a way of staying in the moment so we can spend more time aware of ourselves and our surroundings. It’s not about trying to forcibly change things, but instead trying to accept the way things are for better or for worse, and then changing our responses. Our life may still contain a lot of difficulty if we live with pain or illness, for example, but our quality of life can be profoundly transformed.

This happens through learning to recognise and step away from habitual, often unconscious, emotional, mental and physiological reactions to everyday events. It provides us with a scientifically researched approach to cultivating clarity, insight, and understanding.

It will not eliminate life's pressures, but it can help us respond to them in a calmer manner that benefits our head, heart and body.

So you can see that mindfulness is a way of being that contains infinite riches and possibilities. The many thousands of people who have benefited from the Breathworks approach to mindfulness can testify to that.